Vamp-Hire (8 page)

“Go on,” Dolph said.

Nick took a drink of water. Then another. He
was thirstier than he expected. Then he unwrapped the chocolate and
popped it in his mouth.

It was delicious.

Nick had had candy, but it had been unlike
any other thing he had eaten. It may have been good at first, then
his taste buds would shut off, though, and he may as well have been
eating cardboard. This was great! His tongue was firing on all
cylinders as wave after wave of flavor hit him. It was sweet, it
was bitter, it was creamy. He didn’t know if he’d ever had
chocolate before, but he knew he never wanted to stop.

“Got another?” he asked. Dolph smiled again.
The expression would have looked more natural on a bear.

“Maybe later.”

Nick’s stomach was alive now and he didn’t
want to wait. His vision started to do that thing when he could see
veins beneath people’s skin.

Then the colonel set a bowl of whatever he’d
been warming up in front of him.

It smelled… great.

There was a spoon already inside of it and
Nick wasted no time digging in. He was almost finished when the
colonel ladled more into the bowl. Nick tore into that too and
within minutes he was finished.

“Thought you’d never come up for air,” Dolph
said. “Want some more?”

“No,” Nick said, still a little hungry and
embarrassed. “I’m full, thank you.”

They both turned when the garage door began
opening.

“Bunny!” Dolph said and rushed to the
door.

“Bunny?” Nick said under his breath. He was
nervous for some reason. It wasn’t him who had something to hide,
it was her. Well, it probably was him too. Dolph was retired
military and Nick would be willing to bet he still had some ties on
base or on complex. Whatever they called it. One false step here
and he was back in a pen.

Nick pushed away from the table, eager to get
in front of Dolph somehow. He heard a car door slam and a moment
later another. For a second he wondered why Randy hadn’t stayed
home with Pop-Pop. Then he considered that it would have been
difficult to watch an active three year old and pummel
knife-wielding construction workers at the same time.

Dolph opened the door to the garage.

“Bunny!” he said. The smile still looked
unnatural. Nick caught sight of her over the bigger man’s shoulder
and she looked pissed.

“Pop-Pop, why did you do that to the house?”
She sounded upset too, allowing him to fold her up in a big hug. He
kissed her and Randy on the cheeks, back and forth several times,
and his great-grandson giggled.

“Why, I fixed the house, Honey-bunny,” he
said in a booming, cartoonish voice. “I can’t let the roof fall in
on my two favoritest people in the world.” ‘World’ sounded like it
should have been pronounced with a ‘u’ in place of an ‘r’. He
turned up the baby talk, looking at Randy. “How would you look with
your brains squished out of your ears?”

Phoebe pulled a disgusted face. “It doesn’t
need fixing. Ugh, don’t say that in front of Randy.”

“Oh, he doesn’t care what Pop-Pop is saying,
so long as Pop-Pop squeezes him ‘til his eyeballs pop out!” She let
her grandfather take the tyke off her hip and what came next was
completely revolting. He wrapped his arms around his great
grandson, tucked his face between the boy’s head and shoulder and
began making abhorrent sucking sounds. Randy howled with laughter,
slapping wildly at his head, and Nick seized the opportunity to
wave to catch Phoebe’s attention.

Her mouth dropped open when she looked at him
and then he began making a throat-cutting gesture. Nick wasn’t
certain if she understood, and hoped she would follow his lead.

Dolph let the boy go, putting him on his
feet. “Did you have a good day in school?” Randy nodded. It was
obvious he loved his Pop-Pop, though he wouldn’t talk for him,
either. “Hungry?” He nodded again. “Okay, come on.”

The three of them came into the house proper
and Nick stepped in front of Phoebe.

“Hi, I’m Nick,” he said, taking her hand and
shaking it. “You’re… Bunny?” He couldn’t help the smile on his
face.

She smiled and averted her eyes, her cheeks
turning crimson. “I’m Phoebe. Nice to meet you—”

“Nick.”

“—Nick.” He thought she was pouring it on a
little thick. “Oh, my gosh! What happened to your face?”

“Nothing,” Dolph said, barging between them
and breaking the handshake. “Just a little accident outside. Nick
here is one of the workers.”

“Well, where’s everybody else?”

“It’s getting dark, it's time to pack it in.”
Dolph glanced quickly at Nick and he got the picture. Don’t say
anything about Emilio and the knife incident. “Nick here twisted
his ankle and bumped his face on a rock. You two get washed up for
dinner. It’s ready.”

The room felt colder and Nick wondered if it
had had anything to do with him. He remembered when he and Phoebe
had sat down to talk about him leaving for a few days and how the
temp had dropped. Although before had been on the confusing side,
he was pretty certain this time had been Dolph being a little
protective of his granddaughter.

All the more reason to not say anything about
knowing her.

When mother and son had gone upstairs, Dolph
looked at him sternly. “Hands off.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. That’s my only granddaughter.
Steer clear of her. You got me?”

“Sure. I’m not even interested in any girls.”
Wait, that didn’t come out right. “I mean right now.”

“Well, keep it that way as far as my Bunny is
concerned. Don’t need any foxes in this particular henhouse.”

Is she a chicken or a rabbit? Nick thought.
“I’m trying to get back on my feet. I honestly wouldn’t even have
the capacity to have any kind of relationship.”

Dolph gave him an examining look and
grunted.

Nick made the connection for the first time
that this was a relative of hers. Not that it had mattered, he’d
always been curious of her ethnicity. She could have been just
about anything. Dolph was a light brown complexion, with deep-set
dark eyes, white hair cut short, and full lips. If he’d had to
guess, he’d say the man was black. He could have been a couple of
other things too. He supposed he wondered about these things
because he didn’t know about himself. Whenever he pictured his
parents he couldn’t recall any telltale signs of what their
ethnicities were.

“So you know some about me,” Nick said. “How
about you? Where are you from?”

Dolph had taken a pitcher out of the
refrigerator and was pouring lemonade into two glasses and a sippy
cup.

“Me? What the hell do you want to know about
me for?”

“I’m just curious. Sorry if I’m being too
intrusive.”

Dolph didn’t speak for three or four beats.
“No, no, it’s not you. Hell, I get a good sense off you, Nick and I
trust my instincts. I just get so protective of that little girl
upstairs and my little man. Her last boyfriend, Randy’s father, ran
off on her before he was born. I can’t help but see every other man
as another taker.”

“Taker?”

“You know, givers and takers. We’re all of us
one or the other. Next to her grandmother, Bun—Phoebe’s one of the
biggest hearted people on this Earth. What was that you asked me
again?”

“You,” Nick said, now wanting to know more
about what Dolph was currently saying. “Where are you from?”

“Here. I grew up in Highland Park. It was
practically about all black then and I suppose it is still now. I
went to school there and enlisted in the Marines the day after I
graduated.”

So he was black. Which meant Phoebe was too.
At least partly. Nick mentally patted himself on the back for his
minor degree of detective work.

“What about you? What do you remember?”

“Not too much. I was in a coma for about ten
years they tell me. I actually grew up—” he’d almost said in this
house, and thankfully caught himself— “in this city, but my memory
is really…”

“Like Swiss cheese. Yeah, a lot of you kids
are like that. Did you know every adult who contracted what you
have died? A hundred percent mortality rate.”

“No. I didn’t know that.”

“Some seventeen year-olds died, even fewer
who were younger. Every single man and woman eighteen and older
died.”

“How many people are infected?” Nick had been
wondering this for some time.

“Your guess is as good as mine. I don’t know
who came up with that one percent business. So far as I know, it
could be ten or fifteen. There could even be people who are
infected who have never been diagnosed.”

“So there could be adults who contracted it
who didn’t die.”

Dolph thought a moment. “Yes,” he said. “I
suppose there could be. Not in any case I ever saw, though.”

“How can that be? If they’re not taking
medication, then—” Nick realized he sounded like he was on both
sides of the argument.

“We know the virus can lie dormant. For how
long? We still don’t know the means of transmission.”

Nick mentally noted Dolph’s liberal use of
the word ‘we’. Then he did something that gave Nick an intense
feeling of déjà vu. He rolled his shoulders like he was loosening a
knot going across his back. It could have been any number of people
whom he’d seen do it, in that moment, though, he was certain it had
been the man standing in front of him.

Phoebe and Randy headed down the stairs then
and the moment was broken. Dolph ladled out stew into two bowls and
had them waiting on placemats by the time they got to their chairs.
Nick felt a moment of panic, wondering if Randy might do something
to give him away. If Dolph watched the two of them as closely as
Nick thought he might, even one small glance might be enough to
blow everything.

Nick had eaten dinner with the two of them
often enough and he had a pretty good idea of what Randy would and
wouldn’t eat. Although he’d enjoyed the stew, it seemed a bit much
for the palette of a toddler. When Dolph set the glasses of
lemonade down he also left a piece of chocolate next to Randy’s
bowl.

Phoebe rolled her eyes at her grandfather as
her son unwrapped it. “Pop-Pop, I wish you wouldn’t do that. I’m
trying to teach him treats come after dinner. And not with every
meal.” The candy quickly disappeared and Randy dived into the
stew.

“I know, but look at him,” Dolph said. She
silently watched her son eat for a moment then went to her own
bowl. Nick stared in awe. He’d never seen the boy eat so heartily.
Did the chocolate mean what he thought?

He looked at Dolph, who was busying himself
with dishes in the sink. Nick didn’t understand. Phoebe was
definitely not infected and Randy was too young by five years.
Maybe—

Nick’s stomach groaned.

“You okay over there?” Dolph asked without
turning.

“I—uhh, yeah.” Nick wasn’t honestly sure. It
groaned again and he felt movement inside him. He went to the
bathroom often enough, but never anything as urgent as this. He
stood up.

“I need to use the bathroom.”

Dolph cocked an eyebrow at him and Phoebe
looked too. Randy had eyes only for the bowl in front of him.
“Upstairs, second door down the hall.”

Nick moved as quickly as his body would allow
and barely made it in time. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d
done his business. His therapists had told him doing normal things
would inspire his body to do more normal things. Eliminating waste
was low on the list of things that came to mind when he thought of
normal things he should be doing and he used the time to actually
think about what had happened to him recently.

Nancy was the first thing that swam into his
mind. Nick needed to get to the bottom of that. That probably had
been an abandoned house and they were using it. Nick had been
warned about that before he'd been released. People had strange
beliefs when it came to vampires and they had seemingly carried
over to the infected. Like believing their blood could be used as
some sort of drug to get high or that you could pulverize their
bones into a powder that would be a cure-all for any number of
diseases or that you could shoot them in the head and they wouldn’t
die.

Then his mind raced over the events when he’d
made it to where Lucky was staying. Had he actually been shot with
an arrow? He touched his thigh where he remembered a wound. Nothing
there. He wasn’t even limping anymore. Then sleeping for four
days.

And had he been floating?

He’d have to ask Lucky that the next time he
saw him. With that thought, he remembered he was supposed to meet
up with him for lunch. Working on the house all day, getting
attacked by Emilio, and then getting fed dinner by Dolph had kind
of made him forget. If Lucky weren’t at the same house anymore,
Nick had no idea how to find him. He certainly wasn’t going back to
Earl’s house.

If Dolph gave him a ride, where would he go?
He probably had enough for a motel room. Dolph seemed as
by-the-book as they came. Would he turn Nick in if he told him he
didn’t have an actual residence?

He flushed and washed his hands. When he got
back downstairs, something was different. Randy was still eating
and it looked like he was on his second bowl.

“Need to talk to you,” Dolph said,
matter-of-factly. “Outside.” The man looked agitated. He looked at
Phoebe, who wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Okay.” Nick followed him out the front door
where they sat in the same place he and Emilio had sat for
lunch.

“The crew will be here tomorrow to finish
up.” Dolph was looking somewhere skyward. “Probably best for you
not to be here.”

“What do you mean? Emilio can’t still
be—”

“He’s the foreman’s brother. That particular
señor comes as part of the package.”

“I didn’t really even do anything.” Nick
didn’t point out that Dolph had done all the knocking
unconscious.